T1-4: Temple of Doom

[Swiss Pauli]

@Blake - I was hoping you'd pop in at some point...and I'm glad we started before your 'AI dagger' improvements!

On with the report...well, I decided our barb troubles were mostly over, so I whipped granaries in big and little T. Hammer-T(ime), as I shall call it, was switched to a granary and I called over our fogbusting missionary to spread Conf here. HC has settled Huamanga due west of Big T which will bust that fog nicely. With hindsight I should have sent the missionary to Big T so that we can build another temple there.

The immediate barb troubles came to rather little as they suicided on little-T. Sadly, the axe on our goldmine took a promo and destroyed our mine. It got rebuilt be the end of my (extended) turnset.

Research-wise, I traded CoL to Mao for Sailing (to unlock Calendar) and the rest of Monarchy, mainly so I could start on Construction, as we'll be needing catapults. No other trades possible for the duration, though Boney did come asking after Alphabet.

I sent the Jags and some archers up to attack Saxon. I wondered whether to keep it and decided I would: with three corn, an oasis and a bunch of FPs, it seems well worth a Priest in Big T. Each Jag had just over 70% win chance and all three came up trumps.

Aside from rebuilding the mine, I built our first cottage and farmed some rice, and the copper was reconnected. By hooking Big T up to the river, I connected all our cities. In other news, Taoism was FIDL in 5AD, but I was too distracted by those Barb Swords to check who it was...

As far as Doomsday goes, we could declare on HC and raze Huamanga. It's not connected, is guarded by a single Quechua, and our Archer can see right inside. Inca still lacks metals, but I'm sure he's on his way to Feudalism, but that won't save Huamanga...

 

[frankcor]

Good job, Pauli. I kept wanting to burn that Missionary -- I've never seen one used for fog-busting before. That's too funny!

I've lost track of our variant -- are we getting close to our first prophet yet?

 

[Bede]

We should be about 8 turns from Temple o' Doom Day. Got it for tomorrow.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

@Bede: as I overran, I haven't played out the last turn (just wanted to be sure te sword died), so you'll have units to move on the inherited turn. There's a barb archer heading down to Saxon, so you'll want to give its garrison CG1.

Re: Doomsday - I think you'll need to build a temple next in Big T as we need 1 priest and 1 prophet to support our outlying cities.

@Jet - re: Boney having enough on his hands. Generally, this would mean war, but he's even more backward than we are, so maybe he's getting a hammering from the barbs.

 

[Jet]

Long term, anyone have an idea how to catch up with Ramses? Seems to me like if we're very successful in our corner and Shaka or maybe Napoleon (or Mao? hmm) turns on Ramses and distracts him a lot, then maybe there's a outside chance we can do it, but otherwise...

 

[frankcor]

I don't know of any other way to slow down a tech-leader than to keep him at war. The AI loves to pillage and that will slow Rameses down. Spies are just not enough to keep him down.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Long term, anyone have an idea how to catch up with Ramses? Seems to me like if we're very successful in our corner and Shaka or maybe Napoleon (or Mao? hmm) turns on Ramses and distracts him a lot, then maybe there's a outside chance we can do it, but otherwise...

Frankly, we're gonna have to take it one step at a time: we could have enough of a headache with Capac, let alone worrying about Ramesses. However, when the time comes we should surely beeline for Thebes and raze it: he'll have built most of his wonders there...

 

[Bede]

Okay gents, have a variant problem. Variant requires we declare war the turn the prophet is born. What happens if someone declares on us the turn before the prophet appears, like Napoleon just did, is honor thereby satisfied, or do we declare on a second?

Awaiting a ruling before ending the turn.

 

[Jet]

My intent was that in this case we must declare on someone else.

 

[Bede]

Booyah, it's off to war we go with someone far away.

 

[Bede]

So there I was, peacefully minding my own business, moving Jaguars into position for a war with the Inca, noting that the Parthenon was built in a faraway land and someone founded Christianity, finishing off the Library in the capitol and then a temple for the upcoming priests (2) when

Nappy had just founded Chartres on our eastern border and clearly felt that the border tensions he created were too much for him to bear.

And then a torrent of archers poured across his borders (haven't I been here before?) heading for the fields and mines.

The first battle does not go well as Nappy's archer in the trees Robin Hoods the first Jag thrown at him. But undaunted we whip another to replace him and continue on our way.

The Prophet arrives and builds his shrine and 2 priests are hired to replace him in support of the two towns whose borders do not touch those of Big T

But what to do about the obligatory war declaration? Well Shaka seems as far away as anyone so I declare on him

Towards the end of the reign, the Zulu send a scout around the borders but I was too busy playing Whack a Frog to bother with him.

Anyway, the Froggies keep popping up and they do manage to pillage a rice farm and a mine, but it isn;t anything that can't be dealt with and it seems that Napolean has now used up his spare archers. Chartres has no culture and only two archers in the garrison so it seems like the logical place to start teaching Boney a lesson in manners.

In the rest of the realm all is peaceful. The helpful Chinese burned the Barb village to the NE and so in recompense when Mao asked us to cancel our deals with Ramses I agreed. The work force has run north to stay out of the line of fire and is slowly working its way towards the unimproved towns up there. The Confucian town needs a cottage, but otherwise the work is done, while Mid-T and Saxon need a lot of work.

Napoleon isn't interested in hearing our lies, but needs a lesson which we can do well to provide him. My biggest worry is that Feudalism is out there and we may be facing Longbows in his garrisons soon.

Construction is coming right along due in 5 more turns with the help of some scientists in Little-T (Not so little as its bigger than Big-T)

In a cry from the old days - we need more workers.

 

[frankcor]

YAY! Our Great Prophet is born!

Let the world be eager to hear his word (dispensed by our loyal warriors, of course)!

 

[angeleyes]

I'll play tomorrow. I'm a bit tired with Civ but the spirit will come back

 

[angeleyes]

0 275 AD

Saxon: whip granary
Little T: worker
Tlatelalco: granary in one.

? I see a cottage in our ToD while i thought it should make food as much as possible.

Don't understand why everybody likes jaquars, they are just weaker than swords if you consider their main function.

1 Tlatelalco: worker. Saxon: sacrificial altar. Little T: whip the worker

2 Delete our warrior in the nw for financial reasons

4 Construction > Literature ( for HE, NE and possible trade value). Archer kills Zulu-scout. Get mono + 200 gold from Mao for construction.

5

He looks like the angry brother of Frank Rijkaart, i make peace with him, crazy phony wars.

6 Ramessess II also wants to talk with us again, but i refuse to open our borders, we want to stay friends with Mao, don't we? Mao is pleased with us and gives us immediately 5gold/turn when i ask for it, while that freak Huayna gives us nothing in spite of our pleas.

7 Finally our healed army is ready to attack the poor defended city of Chartres, both jaqs are successfull and we keep the city (no extra prophet in ToD).

8 little T: whip sacrificial altar
Nappie wants to talk and offers us 70 gold and 4/turn for peace. No.

10 425 AD Our temporary leader of the pack isn't in the mood for further movements so he hands it over to his successor. Good luck!

 

[Jet]

I too am anti-Jag. One thing about them, here it says that for purposes of the Soldiers number in F9, Jags count as much as Macemen. I don't know if that's the number the AIs use to judge your strength, though.

Agree about max food in TOD.

Good job on the 5 GPT from Mao. I can rarely seem to pull that off. Question, can you request freebies as much as you want without penalty?

On turn zero I moved a WII Jag next to Lyon and saw that it's defended by a CGIII Archer, a CGI Archer, and a CI Spear. On the road is a WI Spear.

Napoleon seems to be about where we are in tech, but safely far from Feudalism:
- He has Calendar, Currency
- We have Mono, Monarchy, CoL, Alpha, Construction
Because he's a ways from Feudalism I'm inclined to keep after him.

And I'm inclined to try to capture Lyons. It would take 100-150 turns to become a core city, depending, but - we're getting a Prophet in 15 turns. It could alternatively lightbulb Theology thanks to Asperger's Mono trade, and if we had it right now we could still trade it off for Calendar and Currency; but it's too late to found Christianity. So I'm inclined to settle the next prophet if it looks like we can take Lyons, and maybe even if it doesn't.

Maybe I'll see if I can block off reinforcements; and/or, lure out a unit or two by camping on his pigs?

 

[angeleyes]

[....]Question, can you request freebies as much as you want without penalty?[....]

Don't know how it works, my guess is some leaders are more generous than others, if you ask less your chance getting it is higher and waiting some turns after asking will increase your chance next time.

 

[Jet]

Since we're about to get Lit, I propose we build National Epic in TOD at some point. I might not get around to it in my turnset, but in case I do, I thought I'd mention the proposal.

Presumably we also want Wall Street there.

The alternative to National Epic is Globe Theater, but I think the immediate benefit of National Epic is preferable (more prophets = more gold and more cities), and eventually it should have a bunch of temples and cathedrals and a market for happiness.

I also propose Heroic Epic in Hammer-T. We do have a level 4 unit now.

 

[Jet]

0: 425 AD Woodsman II Jag peeks at Lyons for a look-see.

I think hard about it, then move a citizen in TOD from the mine (stagnant, Cat due in 5) to an unfarmed Rice tile (growth in 9, Cat in 7). I figure we're losing too much opportunity by stagnating TOD. Currently TOD has no workers and 2 workers are on road duty between Hammer-T and TOD. I think that's reasonable but still, especially with growing TOD, I move one of them down to TOD.

1: 440:

Currently we have 6 Jags and an Axe in the vicinity of Lyons. Cats are being built and will take a while to build and get there. One Jag is sort of in reserve around TOD. I'm tempted to give him WII and send him over to "barbsville". I want to keep an eye on it so that we can hopefully raze it and build a city a little closer - for example 1N of the Rice it will instantly be a core city and get 3 food resources. I also want to check out Huamanga. I do it.

The Jag by Lyons has WII (also Cover) and is happily sitting on a forest hill, but I risk him on pillaging the road from Lyons to France so that Lyons can't build Axes.

2: 455:

Pillage the farm before pillaging the road.

I suspect barbsville is still there, because an unpromoted barb Archer appears between Huamanga and TOD. I'm hoping it suicides on the WII Jag, which moves up next to it. I end up dancing around with the barb Archer for several turns until it moves out of the jungle and onto the cottage near Temple of Doom (Temple of Doom's GII Archer had scooted over to block the mine); then the Jag nabs it.

3: 470:

Lyons has built an unpromoted Spear. I pillage the road. Napoleon has researched Mono.

Literature comes in. The tech situation is:

I start Civil Service (60) and cross my fingers hoping that we can get it in time to get something for it. Feudalism (45) would be much more practical for Vassalage and Serfdom but has no trade value. We have 60 gold and are at 60% with -3 GPT.

For Lit we could get 90 gold from Shaka and 160 from Vicky. I realize we could lightbulb Theology and grow enough to run a priest in TOD with +1 food. However 448 (Lit) + 1120 (Theo) = 1569 (Feudalism) so we probalby couldn't get Feudalism even for Lit + Theo. Dang. I hold off trading Lit.

I peek at Huamanga. It has no buildings, no culture, no workers - its first build must have been Archer->Longbowman.

4: 485:

Finish Cat in Little T, start another Cat.

Modest pillaging around Lyons. I don't want to pillage everything, just cut off the roads and hopefully draw him out.

5: 515:

Lord McCauley's largest Civs.
1. HC
2. Ramses
3. Mao
4. Shaka
5. TOD
6. Napoleon
7. Vicky

Mao is down to Cautious and asks for Lit. I agree. He's back to Pleased. He captures Gaul, a barb city to our East, providing a hint about where he is. I always imagined Northwest, but now I don't know. Gaul is garrisoned by a Chinese HA and Chariot.

6: 530: Napoleon promotes the Spear in Lyons and builds a CI Archer. I hadn't seen the barracks. I wonder if I should have just thrown all our melee units at Lyons instead of waiting for the 2 Cats.

Hammer-T finishes Barracks, starts Heroic Epic (75).
TOD finishes Cat, starts National Epic (62).
My thinking with these builds was that we needed to attack Lyons after the first couple Cats got there, so that a couple more wouldn't help.

8: 560:

I didn't notice the French stack approaching Chartres, nor that Lyons has built one archer per turn for the last 2 turns, which is surprising, because it doesn't appear to be whipping.

This bums me out. I often get bogged down like this, unable to get reinforcements as fast as the AI. I guess I should have pillaged everything around Lyons. At this point It's possible that I could hold Chartres and still finish pillaging Lyons, but that would be the very best case, so I sign peace for 240 and 4 GPT. Civil Service drops to 28.

10: 590:

Little T finishes Cat, starts Worker.

Napoleon has calmed down and will trade techs. He'll only give 20 for Monarchy, so he must be close, and on the way to Feudalism.

Now, if we attacked ASAP (8 turns) we could attack with at most 3 Cats, 7 Jags, 1 Axe. The units we saw 2 turns ago were 6 Archers, 3 Spears, and 2 Axes. If we kept building Cats maybe we could attack a little later, but still before Longbows. I'm quite unsure of the best thing to do. I give up trying to take advantage of the opportunity to attack him before he has Longbows in favor of continuing the peaceful-expansion tactics that I began a couple turns ago. My guess is that peaceful expansion can have a larger payoff for us than building a bunch of Cats and taking Lyons.

11-13: 605-650:

Trade Construction/CoL/Literature to Napoleon for Calendar/Currency/20. Civil Service drops to 18. I sell Literature to Shaka for 210 so that we can stay at 100% for that time. However, now the only leaders without Civil Service are Ramses, Shaka, and Napoleon.

Notre Dame BIDL (China).

Visigoth is a pretty sweet plum, with 2 workers. I'm sending part of our army there to raze it.

Shaka adopts Bureaucracy... sigh.

15-ish, lost count: 650 AD:

Hammer-T is at its happy cap (actually, I think it has been for a few turns) and it has a large food surplus, so I put a Worker in front of the HE.

Moses is born in Temple of Doom. The only civs without Theology are England, Zululand (who unsurprisingly won't trade any techs and now has war on every civ red-lined), and France.

At our current artificial 100%, Theology would take 14 turns and Vassalage would take 19 turns. It's possible that if I lightbulb Theology, Victoria WOULD trade Feudalism for Theology, Literature, and some gold, of which we have 428. I do think Feudalism would be quite valuable for Vassalage and Feudalism. Bureaucracy is not so great for us unless we move the palace because Temple of Doom won't have commerce tiles. If the trade was risk-free, I'd probably go for it, because we can expand in the short-term around Temple of Doom without needing any more prophets -- even though the trade is with only one Civ. I put the prophet to sleep so that there's an opportunity for discussion. Thoughts?

Speaking of discussion, it's possible (although probably too late) to reverse my decision to go for peaceful expansion right now -- if you look, you'll see that 4/5 of the French stack that threatened Chartres is currently headed towards a barb city in the desert. Also, Napoleon is willing to sign open borders, and he is not disliked by anyone besides Victoria, so we could do that and check out the garrison in Lyons if desired.

 

[Jet]

Possible city locations -

 

[Jet]

On the other hand, if Napoleon is researching Feudalism we could probably get it from him in exchange for Civil Service, without lightbulbing Theology.